Complete-the-Quote Title

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Literature, music and television are full of quotable quotes, and they are frequently used as titles in other works. In this case, only part of a quote is used, one which really doesn't indicate what it's about, but the other part, the one left unsaid, does. This often gets audiences thinking before they see it, and creates expectations about what it will be about, particularly if it's a very well-known quote that everyone can finish without thinking. Other, more obscure, quotes may count as a Genius Bonus, but will still serve the same function in those familiar with them.

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Consider a quote that everyone knows from William Shakespeare, "To be, or not to be," from a scene in which Hamlet contemplates suicide. For this to be in effect, a work in which a character is considering killing himself would be titled, "To Be", while one that focuses on the reasons he has to live would be titled "Or Not To Be".

The Watchmen not only takes its title from the famous quote attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal ("Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"/"Who watches the watchmen?"), but also the name of every single chapter is a piece of song lyrics/other famous quotes. The full quotes are found at the end of each chapter.

Chapter IV: Watchmaker (from the quote, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.", by Albert Einstein).

Chapter XII: A Stronger Loving World (from the song, "Sanities", by John Cale).

Used In-Universe in The Sandman's "Dream Country" Story Arc. The title of Calliope's capturer's first book is "Here comes a candle" (notable in that there are several actual books called that).

Well, not the title but the tagline on every cover. The Thunderbolts had as its tagline, "Justice, Like Lightning..." The first and most obvious clue that our new heroes aren't heroes, but the Avengers foes the Masters of Evil in disguise is that tagline, if you know the full quote: "Justice, like lightning, should ever appear to few men's ruin, but to all men's fear."

Fan Works

The Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "For The Smurf Of Money", to which Tapper completes the full quote, "...is the root of all evil." (1st Timothy 6:10)

Now You See Me, but the film's really about what you don't see until the very end..."now you don't."

Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises takes its title from the poem, "Le Cimetiere marin" ("The Graveyard By The Sea"), by Paul Valery. The full quote is: "Le vent se leve!... Il faut tenter de vivre!" ("The Wind Rises!... We must try to live!") This is presented at the start of the film, as well as quoted several times during it, so the viewer doesn't actually need to know the poem.

The rather non-descriptive title of What Dreams May Come is part of a line from the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet. The full line reads: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come", which reveals the premise of the dying dream plot.

Fools Rush In's title doesn't really make sense considering it's a romantic comedy, until you hear the Elvis Presley lyric "Wise men say / only fools rush in / but I can't help / falling in love with you" in the film.

The title of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film The 6th Day is part of, "God created man in His own image. And behold it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." (Genesis 1:27, 31).

In The Day After Tomorrow, two library-bound survivors ask whether they should burn the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose "The Antichrist" states in its preface: "Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously." Part of this line provided this movie's title.

Through a Glass Darkly: It's from the well-known 12th chapter of I Corinthians, in which Paul describes the limit of human understanding as "we see through a glass, darkly.". Appropriate for a film in which Karin is a schizophrenic suffering from hallucinations, and her father, brother, and husband wonder what to do and what to believe in.

Cry Havoc, about Army nurses on the Bataan Peninsula as it's overrun by the Japanese in 1942, takes its title from a line in Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc', and let slip the dogs of war."

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers: It's from a saying, "Garlic is as good as ten mothers... for keeping the girls away," which refers to garlic's ability to create bad breath. But as used in the movie, the title is sincere.

American Animals: The title comes from a quote from On the Origin of the Species, an abbreviated version of which appears as a title card: "American animals slowly migrated by successive generations from the outer world into the deeper and deeper recesses of the Kentucky caves." All words fade but "Kentucky" to present the setting of the film. The plot includes the theft of a rare version of On the Origin of the Species.

They Shall Not Grow Old "... as we that are left grow old," a line in the poem "For the Fallen" by Lawrence Binyon, which is used in the "Ode of Remembrance" at WWI memorials.

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Literature

The Wilfred Owen poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" ("it is sweet and fitting") is a cross-language example - the full quote being "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country), which is much more appropriate to the poem's War Is Hell subject matter (though it is still an ironic usage).

Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil. Even though there is plenty of evil in the world of this story, it (and lack of fear thereof) isn't really important to the plot. However, the other part of the quote "Though I walk through the valley of death", is a perfect title for the story.

The title of Monstrous Regiment is a variant in which the source quote is so obscure that readers are not intended to recognize it — because if they did, it would be a Spoiler Title. It's named after a sixteenth-century political work titled, "The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women".

Pratchett does give an in-universe reason: The regiment the main character joins is called the Monstrous Regiment because has a troll, a vampire, and an Igor in it.

Of Mice and Men is taken from a line in the Robert Burns poem "To A Mouse". The full line goes "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley" ("The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry"), foreshadowing how the plans of the main characters will go unfullfilled due to tragic circumstances.

Another standalone novel, The Heroes alludes to a quote by Bertolt Brecht that "Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes" (incidentally, the same quote is used as the series title of another grimdark fantasy, A Land Fit for Heroes).

Ben Elton's World War I novel The First Casualty is named for a quotation attributed to US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson: "The first casualty when war comes is truth."

The Fault in Our Stars is quote mined from Shakespeare's "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." Quoth John Green, "Which is an easy thing to say if you're, like, you know, Shakespeare or a Roman nobleman, but in the broad sense, I don't know that I agree with Shakespeare a hundred percent." Diseases, especially diseases like cancer, rarely come to affect people who "deserve" it. It's really very random. And cancer is what really serves as the most negative influence on the characters' lives, so the fault did indeed lie in their stars. Nevermind that Shakespeare's characters were speaking of the rise of a tyrant in their country, something that is the responsibility of the citizens to stop, regardless of "stars". They'd probably agree that diseases and politics are very different.

Agatha Christie's novel The Pale Horse has a Double-Meaning Title. Most obviously, "The Pale Horse" is the name of an old inn that is central to the plot. But, also, it is an allusion to the Book of Revelations: "I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death." In the book, three old women claim to be able to kill people using magic, and they have the body count to back up their claim.

Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves refers to a longer quote from Friedrich Schiller, which makes up the titles of its three acts: "Against Stupidity ... The Gods Themselves ... Contend in Vain." Fitting, since the willful stupidity of certain characters literally threatens to destroy the world.

Isaac Asimov's "That Thou Art Mindful of Him" takes its title from a Biblical psalm which asks "What is Man that thou art mindful of Him?". The question "What is Man?" (or as we'd more likely say now, "What is the definition of a human being?") is central to the story.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is part of a line from a devotional writing by John Donne. In this case, it's the previous line that is most thematically appropriate: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind" (the novel is largely an exploration of the nature of companionship in a time of war and death). However, completing the line that the title is taken from also makes it into a Spoiler Title: "And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Too Like the Lightning, the first book of the Terra Ignota series, derives its title from a passage in Romeo and Juliet: "It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,/Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be/Ere one can say "It lightens." While in the original context, Juliet is expressing doubt about Romeo's constancy, in the context of the novel, it serves to raise questions about the novel's utopian setting and/or shocking events which threaten its continued utopianism.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night actually has no official title, so it was named after the first line of the poem, which goes on into line 2 and 3, "Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

The short story Of the Artist in Pareidolia And The Gilded Scar is based on an Oscar Wild quote "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist note ,not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself "

Live-Action TV

The first episode of Angel is titled "City of...," apparently referring to Los Angeles, the "city of angels."

Star Trek: The Original Series episode: "Whom Gods Destroy". The episode isn't about people being destroyed, by gods or otherwise. However if you know the entire quote "Whom gods destroy, they first drive mad", you'll see it's a perfect title for an episode about an insane asylum.

The episode "The Most Toys" is taken from the quote "He who dies with the most toys wins", a sentiment shared by the antagonist, as he is willing to threaten and risk lives for the purpose of increasing his collection. The ending reinforces it, as he is defeated not by being killed but by living long enough to see his collection confiscated.

The episode "Measure of a Man" takes its title from a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

The episode "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" qualifies. The next line of Longfellow's poem is "It fell to earth, I know not where", lampshading that the astronauts have not landed on a desert planet, but in a desert on Earth.

The title of the episode "A Nice Place to Visit" comes from the saying "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." The Ironic Hell seen in this episode is a casino where you always win: indeed a nice place to visit, but one that drives you crazy with boredom if you're stuck there for all eternity.

One episode is called "And Now For A Word", which in the old days was usually finished with "from our sponsors." This episode is shown as an ISN documentary on the station, and includes a commercial for the Psi Corps, which has a single frame with the words, "The Psi Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps." The implication is that Psi Corps was the sponsor and that they got their word in.

The episode "And the Sky, Full of Stars" plays with this; it's a slight misquote of...not a literary quote, but a line that Sinclair actually used in the pilot episode, referring to the Battle of the Line (which the current episode was centered about):

We never had a chance. The sky was full of stars, and every star an exploding ship—one of ours.

"The Sincerest Form of Flattery'': The episode deals with an AI-controlled attack sub that goes rogue, but which was programmed using Bridger's personality, and using tactics he developed. Imitation, after all...

"By Any Other Name" deals with an underwater horticultural colony being overrun by an unknown force, a plant that mutated and became intelligent and aggressive. And immune to lasers. A rose (or crazy B-movie inspired monster plant) by any other name.

"And Everything Nice" has Lucas falling for a girl on shore but this turns out to be a subversion as sugar and spice she is not. She's actually part of a terrorist cell using Lucas to gain access to UEO facilities.

The episode "Nevermore" gets its title from The Raven, in which a raven drives a man to insanity ("Quoth the raven..."). In this episode, Raven is possessed and deals out Breaking Speeches to the other characters.

"Red Sky At Morning", from an oft-quoted mariner rhyme: "Red sky at night, sailors' delight. / Red sky at morning, sailors take warning." Fittingly, in this episode, Clarke and company visit Luna's sea-dwelling people, and the trip goes awry.

In The Addams Family, Wednesday Addams has a complete-the-quote name. Her name comes from the popular folk poem that starts "Monday's child is fair of face" and gives similar descriptions for the other days of the week. The line for Wednesday is "Wednesday's child is full of woe", which perfectly describes the solemn Wednesday.

The Good Place: "...Someone Like Me As a Member" deals with Eleanor's dislike of social groups and her overcoming this over the course of the episode. The title is taken from a Groucho Marx quote: "I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member."

Gotham: "All Happy Families Are Alike" takes it's title from the opening line of Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." No points for guessing what the episode is about.

Theatre

Both Your Houses is a play about an idealistic young congressman who sets out to defeat a corrupt appropriations bill, fails, and then vows to bring down the whole corrupt system. The quote is from Romeo and Juliet: "A plague o' both your houses!"

Inherit the Wind has nothing to do with inheritance or wind, but a great deal to do with the idea of a community tearing itself apart. The complete quotation, which comes from the Book of Proverbs, is recited by Brady when Reverend Brown turns on his own daughter:

Due to the Dead is missing the first part, "the respect", or "the reverence".

He Who Fights Monsters comes from the famous quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. The full quote is presented on the trope page, and it goes like this: "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you".

If I Wanted You Dead... you would already be dead. There are several variations on this one, but the gist of all of them is that whoever's saying it is perfectly capable of killing someone, but has not for a specific reason.

"Loose Lips sink ships." Coming from World War II, this was a reminder for people to watch what they say lest unfriendly people overhear sensitive information.

Behind Every Great Man the the first half of the phrase "Behind every great man stands an even greater woman."

Halfway through the main storyline is a quest titled "All Good Things", referencing the saying "All good things must come to an end." Having just triumphed over Titan, you return to the Scions' safehouse to report in person. And you find the aftermath of a brutal Garlean attack, with only one survivor who hangs on just long enough to tell you what happened and where to go. Worse, the Garleans were there specifically looking for you.

The last quest of the 2.5 storyline (and, by extension, of A Realm Reborn) is titled "Before the Dawn". Given all the horrible things that have happened by the time you get there (extremely short version: the Ul'dahn Syndicate launches a coup, with the aid of the traitorous Ilberd and several of his fellow Crystal Braves, the sultana is poisoned, you and your fellow Scions are framed for the crime, amd most of them stay behind to buy you time to escape and clear your name) it's easily the Darkest Hour of the story.

Late in 3.1's story, you engage in a quest called "Against the Dying of the Light" part of a line from Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night (the same source as Do Not Go Gentle. The full line is "Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night. Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light."), Which has the Warrior of Light, along with Thancred, Y'sholta, Alphinaud, Aymeric and Artoiel going into the Vault to rescue hostages form fundamentalist extremists, and ends with one of the hostages being saved by a dragon. Note that Aymeric is also injured during this. The missing part of the line could reference that the antagonists of the quests are not willing to see their way of of life go so quickly, in other words, they rage against the dying of their light. It could also reference how Aymeric is willing to fight despite his injuries.

And on a lighter note, there's the achievements for completing high-end raids as a tank which, when taken together, make a whole quote: "A Tankless Job", "But Somebody's Gotta Do It".

Red Dead Redemption has a mission close to the end of the game, "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", in which John Marston must protect his family when their farmstead is attacked by the US Cavalry. If you're familiar with the original quote, a passage from Corinthians, you know there are two words missing from the end, "... is Death", which makes it pretty easy to guess that John is killed at the end of the mission.

LEGOThe Lord of the Rings has an Achievement/Trophy called "One Does Not Simply...". Completing the quote tells you how to unlock it: Walk into Mordor. Of course, when looking through lists of achievements, the title and requirement are written together, forming the whole quote.

There's a quest in the Mt. Hyjal region that's a play on the phrase, "If you're not with us, you're against us", but switches it around a bit. The actual title is, "If You're Not Against Us...", and the point is to convince a demonic satyr to help repel the invading Twilight's Hammer, which he does, though he arranges it so that in the process he can escape the chains imprisoning him there.

One of the Halfhill daily quests is called "Water, Water Everywhere", which comes from Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and is about watering Farmer Fung's drying out crops, "nor any drop to drink."

In Mass Effect 2, a number of missions and achievements are partial references to quotes or songs, for instance the mission "A House Divided", a reference to an Abraham Lincoln quote ending in "... against itself cannot stand." The original speech was given during his campaign to be elected to the US Senate in 1858, and was primarily concerned with the question of slavery, while predicting that the US would fall apart on itself if the question wasn't resolved soon. Naturally, The American Civil War broke out a few years later due in large part to that exact issue, and the mission in-game centers on The Geth being divided on how to deal with the Reapers and a faction hoping to force the rest into obeying the Reapers.

All the storylines in Skin Horse have Children's Literary Allusion Titles, and usually the reference is right there in the title ("I Can Fly" introduces Nick the helicopter; "Big Bad Wolves" is about werewolves). There have been two exceptions: "Yes, Virginia" is about Virginia Lee joining the team's Secret Santa ("... there really is a Santa Claus") and "Sure as You're Born", from the Shel Silverstein poem "The Unicorn", is about the Weirdness Censor mysteriously spreading from about 20% of the US population to nearly everyone. You're never going to see a unicorn.

Western Animation

An episode of She-Ra: Princess of Power is titled "He Ain't Heavy" which makes very little sense unless you're familiar with the phrase "He ain't heavy, he's my brother" (derived from a hit song by The Hollies). The plot involves Adora needing to rescue Prince Adam (her brother) from the Horde.

The Legend of Korra has this with the episode "Long Live the Queen". A gender conjugated version of the last part of the phrase "The King is dead, Long live the King". The Big Bad of the season kills the Earth Queen halfway through the episode.

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